optimize your performance with managed training services
TRANSCRIPT
Optimize Your Performance
with
Managed Training Services
200 Vesey St – Brookfield Place – New York, NY 10281 – 1017
cgsinc.com [email protected]
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Contents Optimize Your Performance with Managed Training Services ............................................ 1
About CGS ............................................................................................................................. 3
High-Performing Organizations Use Managed Services ......................................................... 4
Provide faster turnaround time to meet business needs ...................................................... 4
Reduce the cost of lost opportunity ..................................................................................... 5
Increase and reduce capacity on demand ........................................................................... 5
Fill skill gaps immediately while growing the core learning team’s skills .............................. 6
Embrace new technology in less time with less cost and risk .............................................. 6
Shift from capital expenditures to operating expenditures ................................................... 7
Focus on strategic alignment with business goals ............................................................... 7
The True Cost of Getting the Right Skills ................................................................................ 7
Base Salary with Benefits ................................................................................................... 8
Evaluating Potential Candidates ......................................................................................... 8
Validating and Vetting Candidates ...................................................................................... 8
Post-hire Onboarding .......................................................................................................... 8
Providing Equipment and Licenses ..................................................................................... 9
Cost of Lost Opportunity ..................................................................................................... 9
True Cost Comparison Calculator ....................................................................................... 9
What it Takes to Vet and Validate Candidates .......................................................................10
Skills and Credentials ........................................................................................................10
Team Experience ...............................................................................................................11
Cultural Fit .........................................................................................................................11
Rates .................................................................................................................................11
Background and Social Media Checks ...............................................................................11
How to Choose a Scope of Managed Training Services ........................................................12
Flexible Staffing Overview ..................................................................................................12
Managed Projects Overview ..............................................................................................13
End-to-End Learning Functions Overview ..........................................................................14
Summary ...............................................................................................................................14
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About CGS
For more than 30 years, CGS has enabled global enterprises, regional companies and
government agencies to drive breakthrough performance through business applications,
enterprise learning and outsourcing services.
CGS serves as a trusted managed training services partner to 3,500 of the world’s largest and
most respected organizations in the financial, banking, legal, IT, insurance, telecom, medical,
gaming, oil and other industries. 95 percent of CGS clients return to CGS for additional projects
or ongoing services. CGS has a strong focus on great client relationships, as demonstrated by
an average client tenure of 9 years.
CGS is recognized within the training industry as a leader in Managed Training Services. In fact,
Training Industry,an expert resource on the business of training, has recognized CGS as a
leader in outsourcing and training annually since 2008. Brandon Hall has also recognized CGS
as an innovator in the field of learning services and technology. With 6% of revenue annually
devoted to research and development, CGS is continuously innovating to help clients optimize
their performance.
With a global presence of 8,000 professionals in 40 countries supporting more than 20
languages, CGS helps organizations with their needs for specific short-term talent with flexible
staffing, entire projects and programs through managed projects or outsourcing of entire training
functions with end-to-end managed training services.
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High-Performing Organizations Use Managed Services
Managed service approaches that first took hold in the IT Services field are now being used
extensively for learning/training services by high-performing organizations. Within a two-year
period, studies found the percentage of organizations leveraging managed IT services grew
from 30% to 66%.1 Today, more than 58% of organizations use managed services for learning,
with 84% having established an ongoing relationship with their provider.2,3
Though cost cutting initially played a significant role in the decision to embrace managed
services, organizations are finding benefits that more deeply and broadly optimize their overall
operational performance far beyond cost savings. High-performing organizations are using
managed training services to:
● Provide faster turnaround time to meet business needs and requirements
● Reduce the cost of lost opportunity
● Grow and shrink the teams, as needed, in response to demand
● Fill skill gaps immediately while growing the core team skills
● Embrace new technology in less time with less cost and risk
● Shift from capital expenditures to operating expenditures
● Focus on strategic alignment with the business’ goals
● Gain cost savings
Provide faster turnaround time to meet business needs
As more organizations have embraced Agile approaches to delivering value over the past
decade, the time from initial concept to delivery has been steadily shrinking. Larger, “born on
the Web” companies such as Facebook, Google, Netflix and LinkedIn now have standard
processes in place by which new products and services can be delivered within minutes, hours
or days.4,5,6,7
However, Agile approaches have also become standard methods of operation within more
traditional organizations, including government, medical and finance.8,9, 10 The drive to become
1 https://www.comptia.org/resources/4th-annual-trends-in-managed-services 2 http://www.clomedia.com/2016/10/18/outsourcing-satisfaction-is-up-spending-is-down/ 3 https://trainingmag.com/trgmag-article/2o15-training-industry-report 4 https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Facebook-Release-Process 5 https://air.mozilla.org/continuous-delivery-at-google/ 6 http://techblog.netflix.com/2013/08/deploying-netflix-api.html 7 https://www.wired.com/2013/04/linkedin-software-revolution/ 8 http://www.acq.osd.mil/se/briefs/2015_10_29_NDIA18-Agile-Brady.pdf 9 http://www.minnetronix.com/resources/white-papers/agile-software-principles.html 10 http://www.excelian.com/blog/agile-methodology-in-finance/#.WGPBlVMrKCg
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more agile, which initiated with software development, has permeated every part of the
business--including learning functions.
Managed Training Services enable businesses to respond to business needs with greater
agility. Organizations are able to staff a project for a new need without having to wait for a
project that is already in progress to complete. Managers can bring together teams with all of
the required skills quickly, whether it’s a single, specialized skill that’s needed to complement an
existing core team, or an entirely new team with all skills needed to increase the organization’s
capacity.
Reduce the cost of lost opportunity
High-performing organizations leverage faster turnaround time to reduce the cost of lost
opportunity. By reducing time-to-productivity, they are much more competitive in the market.
As an example, for organizations rolling out new custom applications to increase productivity of
their workforce, not having training immediately available can create significant barriers to
adoption and added costs. Calls to support increase. The support team may not be adequately
prepared for the questions. As the volume of calls increases, responsiveness of the support
team decreases. This can cause the acceptance of the application to decrease. By providing
faster turnaround time, high-performing organizations are able to provide timely training in
support of application rollouts.
Faster turnaround time for training also enables high-performing organizations to reduce costs
related to lost opportunities that might arise if new products and services have inadequate
training for sales and inbound support. Sales teams that are lacking from timely training simply
don’t have the information they need to be able to compete in the market--even if they have a
competitive offering. Additionally, if inbound support is not prepared to handle calls from
customers, customer satisfaction (often, Net Promoter Scores or NPS) will decrease
substantially.
Increase and reduce capacity on demand
Most organizations find that there are peaks and valleys for meeting the learning demands of
their business. Many organizations have peaks in demand for learning during the early stages of
embracing new technology, modifying their processes or working towards cultural change.
Though learning is a continuous part of an ongoing transformation effort and continuous
investment is required to effectively create long-term change, significant effort is required to
develop the initial resources. The sudden changes in capacity required to meet the needs of all
impacted roles, skill sets and geographies can quickly overburden the organization’s capacity to
accommodate the needs.
As an example, a Canadian telecom with over $13.4B CAD in annual revenue engaged in a
rapid pivot that demanded new technology and new processes. The changes also included a
shift in mindset and culture to enable the company to gain a competitive edge. This required
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that the learning organization develop hundreds resources and artifacts within a 3-month period,
in both English and Canadian French, to enable everyone to embrace the changes.
If additional team members are brought on board to meet the learning needs, there can be extra
capacity remaining in the team once the urgent needs are addressed. These valleys can be
costly to the organization.
Keeping the team right-sized to optimize performance is challenging. With Managed Training
Services, skilled professionals work for a client, as long as the client has a need within the
contracted arrangement. Organizations can optimize their performance by increasing and
reducing capacity, as needed. One of the top three reasons that organizations are leveraging
Managed Training Services is to address surges in demand. 56% of organizations that leverage
managed services do so to handle sudden surges in demand.11
Fill skill gaps immediately while growing the core learning team’s skills
Organizations that are innovating and embracing emerging technologies to achieve better
outcomes for their learners may find that they do not have the skills in house to be able to
implement new solutions. Mobile, analytics, social, games, simulations, virtual reality and many
other exciting technologies can be used by skilled learning professionals to better meet the
changing needs of learners.
However, the time and expense associated with ramping up the core team (while a good longer-
term strategy) can impact whether the learning organization can meet the needs of the moment.
Managed Training Services enable an organization to fill skill gaps immediately with talented
and proven professionals. The supplier managing the services assumes responsibility for vetting
talent, validating the professional’s resume and experience, confirming references, ensuring
accuracy of work history and providing talent with a good cultural fit, communication skills,
responsiveness and work ethic.
Embrace new technology in less time with less cost and risk
Embedding new team members with specialized skills can help the core team to build up their
skills without significantly slowing down the delivery process. Often, ramping up on new skills
without a subject matter expert on hand can cause significant delays, result in products with
reduced quality and generate lost opportunities as other projects are delayed. Though the team
may get the basics of the new technology, they may not understand the ramifications of
implementation choices and may not be aware of best practices.
With Managed Training Services, organizations can bring on team members with specialized
skills who can demonstrate how to use the latest technology and serve as a mentor through an
actual project so that the team engages in on-the-job learning. This practical exposure to new
11 https://www.comptia.org/resources/4th-annual-trends-in-managed-services
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technology enables the team to ramp up far more quickly. Additionally, the team is left with
sample code, projects, processes and techniques to which they might not otherwise be
exposed.
Shift from capital expenditures to operating expenditures
Beyond the total wage costs, hiring new employees, ramping the core team up on new skills,
handling bursts of demand or evaluating new technology and new approaches to learning, can
increase capital expenditures. Costs can include providing PCs, mobile devices or desktop
machines for employees, the cost of standard software licenses, software licenses for the new
technology and servers on which to install software.
Managed Training Services shift expenses from capital expenditures to operating expenditures,
optimizing cash flow and providing a leaner balance sheet.
Focus on strategic alignment with business goals
While core staff are focused on tactical needs such as finding, evaluating and processing new
hires or developing learning artifacts to meet business goals, they are using less time to focus
on their strategic alignment with the business.
Managed Training Services help enterprises to focus on strategic alignment with the business.
57% of enterprises surveyed in a recent 2016 Global Outsourcing Survey reported that their
goal in hiring managed services is to free up their staff to focus on core business alignment,
while 38% have the goal of freeing up staff to work on more strategic projects.
The True Cost of Getting the Right Skills
The true cost of hiring an employee as opposed to bringing on Managed Training Services
professionals for short-term assignments to fill skills gaps can be significant. The costs for an
employee cover the full cycle of hiring, including identifying potential recruits, vetting,
onboarding, mentoring and supporting and working to retain them. Total costs can be grouped
into the following categories:
● Base salary with benefits
● Evaluating potential candidates
● Validating and vetting candidates
● Post-hire onboarding
● Providing equipment and licenses
● Cost of lost or delayed opportunity
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Base Salary with Benefits
Organizations typically consider base salary and full benefits, such as paid vacation, sick days,
paid holidays, breaks, Worker’s Compensation, Unemployment Insurance, Medical Insurance
Disability, Dental, matching 401K, gym memberships, tuition reimbursement programs and
others. However, there are many hidden costs.
With Managed Training Services, the rate is typically a fixed rate per hour. The organization is
not responsible for additional benefits.
Evaluating Potential Candidates
The costs of evaluating potential candidates include those related to HR, managers and
interviewers evaluating candidates. These costs include a wide variety of activities: drafting the
job description, ramping up enough on technology to be able to vet the candidates, and
interviewing and responding to questions from candidates.
Managed Learning Services reduce the cost of evaluating potential candidates. While the
organization will still need to draft their requirements, provide those requirements to the provider
and interview the selected candidate, the provider takes the requirements and identifies a good
match based on resume and prior experience with the candidates. Alternatively, the
organization may choose to search the provider’s database of resumes, knowing that they have
been fully vetted.
Validating and Vetting Candidates
Costs of validating and vetting candidates include drug testing, conducting reference checks,
performing credit checks, engaging in behavioral and skills assessments, arranging travel to vet
candidates, and other costs. With traditional hiring, the organization is responsible for all of the
vetting costs. Often, organizations who are in a hurry to secure talent will skip some of the
validation and vetting procedures.
With Managed Training Services, candidates have already been fully vetted by the Managed
Training Services provider. The provider contacts references to help judge the candidate’s skills,
to fact-check contents of the candidate’s resume, determine workplace performance around
both hard and soft skills, and obtain insight regarding personality and well-roundedness.
Post-hire Onboarding
After hiring, new employees go through new hire orientation and initial training which includes
hidden expenses related to the cost of the trainer, facilities, any printed materials, possibly
catering and others. Additionally, during the on-ramping period, the new hire is non-productive
or functioning at a much lower level of productivity. In some cases, a new hire may perform at
50% of the performance of an equally-skilled fully-tenured employee during the first three
months. Studies also indicate that new employees work fewer days during their first three
months. The costs for post-hiring onboarding and orientation can be substantial.
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With Managed Training Services, the services professional is expected to focus on a particular
project or task. Typically, orientation and initial ramp-up are a mere fraction of what is expected
and needed for core team members. Many of the common objectives for employee orientation,
such as reducing employee turnover, reducing startup costs, reducing new hires’ anxiety,
helping to develop realistic job expectations, etc., are not as applicable to managed service
professionals.
Providing Equipment and Licenses
After hiring the right person, organizations typically provide a fully-configured laptop or desktop
machine, mobile devices to use for development and testing, and licenses for all software
required.
Managed Training Services allow organizations to skip these additional expenses. Typically, the
Managed Training Services provider or the professional will provide the equipment and licenses
for projects. This is helpful to organizations that are innovating, experimenting or working on a
specialized project that only need licenses for a short time. For example, if an organization is
working on a mobile development project, the provider or hired professional will already have
android devices and/or iPhones and iPads that will be used for development efforts.
Cost of Lost Opportunity
Perhaps the greatest difference between hiring an employee and bringing on specialized skills
with Managed Training Services is the cost of lost opportunity. The longer it takes the
organization to fill positions with qualified talent, the longer it takes for them to deliver products,
solutions and services to market. Delays result in sales being missed or in opportunities being
lost to more agile competitors.
Managed Training Services reduce the cost of lost opportunity by reducing the time it takes to
find, vet and bring on the talent needed to complete a project.
True Cost Comparison Calculator
Are you interested in a cost comparison of hiring versus bringing on Managed Training
Services? CGS developed the “True Cost Comparison Calculator” to help organizations
evaluate the impact of leveraging Managed Training Services. The calculator compares the cost
of bringing on an employee where there is a short-term need for a specialized skill with the cost
of bringing on a professional through Managed Training Services. Contact CGS for access to
the calculator today.
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What it Takes to Vet and Validate Candidates
When a manager is under pressure to bring on talent in order to meet deadlines that are directly
tied to key strategic initiatives or tied to market opportunities, it can be very tempting to skip
parts of the vetting and validation processes. However, failing to thoroughly vet and validate
candidates can have severe consequences to the enterprise.
For example, not carefully executing drug tests can result in hiring candidates with substance
abuse issues. According to an article in Entrepreneur magazine, 65 percent of on-the-job
accidents are related to substance abuse and drug-abusing employees are six times more likely
to file worker's compensation claims than other employees.12
It can be tempting to trust content in a resume, especially if a quick phone interview with the
candidate goes well and seems to substantiate their claims. However, it’s worth noting that
nearly 40 percent of all job applications and resumes include false or inflated statements about
skills and work experience.
Verify and validate candidates thoroughly to ensure you are bringing on a flexible staffing
professional that has the right skills with the needed industry experience, a good work ethic and
a background that will mesh well with your team.
Skills and Credentials
Finding a good match for a position requires that the organization be able to clearly identify and
articulate the skills needed. This means that the organization will need to have enough
experience and understanding of the skill to be able to write the job description.13 If this is a new
area for the team or organization, it can be difficult to articulate the level, depth or type of skill
needed. If necessary, a Managed Training Services provider can help you by understanding
what it is you are trying to accomplish and using that to filter the resume repository.
Make sure candidates have the right skills and credentials to rapidly begin adding value to the
team. Certifications can be an indicator of expertise, but the professional’s experience working
on customer-driven projects and solving real problems using the specialized skills of interest is a
better indicator of how well they will perform on the job. If nobody on your team has the skill, it
can be very hard to accurately vet skills. A Managed Training Services provider will have vetted
the skills and validated project experience for you so that you can trust the skills and credentials
on the resume.
12 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/83774 13 http://blogs.wsj.com/atwork/2015/02/11/the-simple-change-that-attracts-great-job-applicants/
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Team Experience
In order for a managed services professional to quickly become as productive as possible, they
will need to be matched appropriately to the team. Organizations looking to bring on temporary
skills may choose to allow the professional to work remotely or may require that they work on-
site. If a candidate works remotely, it’s important that they have demonstrated their ability to
work and deliver results as a distributed team member. This requires a combination of soft skills
and technical skills--experience with remote teaming applications, such as chat applications,
video conferencing, remote desktop and others. Additionally, if working remotely, the
candidate’s location, time zone and language skills are factors that should be considered.
Because Managed Training Services providers know the candidates well, they are able to
provide recommendations to organizations or provide feedback when a client selects a
candidate from a resume repository.
Cultural Fit
It’s also important that the candidate is a good fit for the corporate culture. Cultural fit is the
likelihood that someone will be able to adapt to the core beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of an
organization.14 A recent survey of more than 1,800 North American CEOs and CFOs indicated
that 90% believe that the success of their business is tied to their culture.15 According to the
Cubiks International Survey on Job and Cultural Fit, more than 80% consider cultural fit to be
critical in bringing on new people. Managed Training Services providers have vetted the
professional’s experience and are familiar with the individual. This enables providers to make
recommendations regarding cultural fit of candidates.
Rates
With Managed Training Services, rates are established up-front based on experience, expertise,
results and demand for the professional, though there may be discounts for longer term
contracts. This means that organizations can view the rates and resumes, and then make a
decision about whether they are interested in hiring a particular candidate. This reduces time
and effort spent on negotiations.
Background and Social Media Checks
Of course, performing the standard background and social media checks is important to vetting
and validating candidates. According to a survey by CareerBuilder, the number of employers
who use social media to screen candidates is now 60 percent, a 500 percent increase over the
last decade. 49 percent of hiring managers who screen candidates using social media have
been influenced not to hire a candidate. Inappropriate photos, information about drug use,
14 https://hbr.org/2015/07/recruiting-for-cultural-fit 15 http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/news_events/news-releases/corporate-culture/#.WGp20VMrJaQ
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discriminatory comments and poor communications skills are among the reasons they chose
not to hire a candidate.16
Managed Learning Service providers take on the time and cost of evaluating candidates before
they are included in the resume database and/or submitted to a client as a potential match.
How to Choose a Scope of Managed Training Services
There are three different levels at which organizations bring in managed training services,
depending on the scope of their needs:
● Flexible Staffing
● Managed Projects
● E2E Learning Functions
The approaches for bringing in managed training services are summarized in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Approaches to Managed Training Services
Moving from top to bottom, the approaches increase in the responsibilities and scope of the
relationship between the organization and the service provider.
Flexible Staffing Overview
Flexible staffing is an approach in which you are able to meet the immediate demand for a
particular skill or ability. As an example, if your organization is just getting started with
developing learning for mobile delivery or has a spike in demand for instructional designers,
flexible staffing allows your team to grow to include the exact skills you need at the time you
16 http://www.careerbuilder.com/share/aboutus/pressreleasesdetail.aspx?ed=12%2F31%2F2016&id=pr945&sd=4%2F28%2F2016
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need them. As your team grows their skills in-house or as the need for additional staff subsides,
you adjust your contracts to optimize your expenditures.
Exemplary managed training service providers deliver additional bonus hours of professional
skills in other skill areas based on the number of hours purchased by an organization. This
means that hiring a managed training services professional will give you access to time with
subject matter experts that can help you to accelerate your projects.
Performance of the managed training services provider is measured in terms of role
performance. The value of the instructional designer, for example, contributes to the bigger
picture performance of the team and organization. While there is business impact, the
instructional designer or vendor managing the instructional designer is evaluated at a
contributing level--in terms of quality of instructional design, timeliness, throughput, ramp-up
time required, adherence to the instructional objectives and learner feedback.
The business approach for flexible staffing is typically in the form of short-term operating
expenses. These are ongoing expenses during times of utilization. When staff are no longer
required according to contractual agreements, the expenses end.
The partnership model for flexible staffing is the rate card. Vendors and clients negotiate a rate--
hourly, weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly--with discounts typically given for lengthier
engagements.
Managed Projects Overview
Managed Projects are similar to flexible staffing, but focus on complete projects or programs.
For example, if your organization has a need for a Web-based training course that is beyond
your team’s capacity, engaging in a Managed Project can enable you to complete the additional
course within the time, budget and quality standards that you establish.
The service provider’s performance for the business is typically measured in terms of the
contracted project metrics. KPIs can include adherence to delivery milestones, adherence to
requirements and specifications, quality standards, adherence to reporting requirements, etc.
The business approach for managed projects is typically fixed cost deliverables. Typically, the
organization and the provider will establish what needs to be done for a project and the dates
that milestones will be delivered. It is up to the provider to establish the team and complete the
work within the budget allocated.
The partnership with the service provider is typically is an operational relationship between the
provider, the learning organization and the business unit with the training requirements. The
provider will work with a part of the client organization to complete a specific project. The
relationship is generally isolated to the group that requested the work and any parts of the
business that the vendor must contact in order to complete the contracted project.
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End-to-End Learning Functions Overview
End-to-End Learning Functions address the broad scope of all services related to learning
operations, including strategy development and organization oversight to design,
implementation, fulfillment, logistics, vendor management and more.
The performance of the provider is typically tied to the enterprise’s business/balanced
scorecard. The metrics focus on KPIs related to overall business processes, financials and
customer satisfaction.
The relationship between the provider and the client is an enterprise business partnership. To
achieve goals, the provider’s relationship with the client typically spans parts of the business
beyond learning, such as HR for managing long-term retention, site operations for managing
classroom scheduling and IT services for administration of learning technology. Relationships
may extend beyond the organization or enterprise to a full network of vendors who
collaboratively support the enterprise learning needs.
Summary
High-performing organizations use managed services to gain a competitive advantage by
getting to market faster, reducing cost of lost opportunity and paying for just the skills needed to
optimize the capabilities of their core team. Different approaches to managed training services
include bringing on professional learning team members through flexible staffing, working with a
managed service provider’s team to deliver more learning projects and programs, and relying on
a managed training service provider to manage entire functions of training, end-to-end.
To learn more about how your organization can benefit from Managed Training Services,
contact CGS.